Nicosia, Cyprus. Several notable events have occurred on January 28 across literature, aviation and space disasters, political developments and international relations. The date includes milestones spanning from 1939 to 2009.
Literature and cultural figures
Irish poet and dramatist William Butler Yeats died in 1939; he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923.
Astrid Lindgren, the Swedish children’s author and creator of Pippi Longstocking, died in 2002 at age 94.
Archbishop Christodoulos, head of Greece’s Orthodox Church who mended ties with the Vatican but clashed with the Greek state, died in 2008.
Disasters
Seven astronauts died in 1986 when the space shuttle Challenger exploded 72 seconds after liftoff from Cape Canaveral.
In 2002, a Boeing 727 belonging to Ecuadorean carrier TAME with 92 passengers and crew crashed into Colombia’s Cumbal volcano, killing all on board.
Justice and government
At South Africa’s Truth Commission in 1997, police confessed to the 1977 murder of black civil rights leader Steve Biko.
Japan’s Finance Minister Hiroshi Mitsuzuka stepped down in 1998 because of a bribery case.
Politics and diplomacy
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s right-wing Likud party won a general election in 2003.
In 2009, President Raul Castro began the first visit to Russia by a Cuban leader since the end of the Cold War; the previous visit by a Cuban leader was Fidel Castro’s trip to Moscow in 1986.
Which of these January 28 events do you consider the most significant today?
